MY ONE-SHOT ADVENTURES

     This is a list of one-shot RPG scenarios which I have run or played in, either for running at conventions or just for with friends. Often the material isn't fully online.

Larps

Death at Bancroft Manor - played in June 2023

Russell's Argh! Games

These are games run by Russell Impagliazzo, using the Argh! system.

A Thousand and One Nights

This is a GMless system where everyone makes up characters, and goes in rounds where one character will tell a story. That player then becomes the GM and assigns roles in the story to other players.

Amber

I've run some one-shot Amber games at AmberCon NorthWest, including "Princesses in Rebma" (using the Amber Diceless system) and "Big Trouble in Little Amber" (using Spirit of the Century).

Best Friends

This is a GMless system aimed at easy pick-up play, ostensibly about girlfriends and their petty (or not so petty) hatreds.

Bill and Ted's Heinous Mission

This is a one-shot Paranoia adventure, suitable for running at conventions or such. It is an anything-goes parody of various time travel schticks which pits Bill and Ted against the bizarre Paranoia future. I ran it twice with friends a while ago, and much later at the "Gateway 99" con in L.A.

Bonds of Steel

A Truth & Justice adventure about a superhero family, sort of a less vanilla reaction to The Incredibles. I ran it part-way with friends as a playtest, and twice at GenCon Indy '06.

Brawny Thews

An adventure for the D20-based Conan RPG, this was my experiment in combat-heavy dramatic gaming. It involves a set of six characters -- all brawny Cimmerians, but set centuries after Conan's time. They are captured and brought to the exotic Eastern city of Aghrapur.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Slayerbot Series

A series of Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG adventures that I have run at a few Bay Area conventions. The first was my original test of the Buffy RPG system. It is set amongst high school students in Santa Cruz -- and takes off of old fifties sci-fi movies (as opposed to Buffy's taking off of old vampire/werewolf/ghost stories).

Dead of Night

A horror genre "pocket RPG" designed for quick and easy pick-up play. I've run or played in a handful of scenarios.

Dogs in the Vineyard

I have done several short runs of Dogs in the Vineyard. "Dugway Canyon" was an original scenario for DitV which I ran at ConQuest 2005. I have also run several other towns, including "Boxelder Canyon" (from the book) and "New Gideon" (from online). Dogs is an extremely easy system to prepare for.

Extra Credit

This is a one-shot adventure using the Hero system which I have run a number of times over the years. The pregenerated PCs are all ordinary college students who undergo an unusual psychology experiment and become embroiled in a secret plot.

The Face of Angels

An indie story game about super-powered teens by Clinton R. Nixon, that I playtested at "KueiCon" in Oakland, January 2007.

Hellcats & Hockeysticks

An indie RPG about over-the-top "bad girls" at a fictional English boarding school - based on the St. Trinian's comics and movies. I've run several one-shots of this, which work great.

The Kobolds Adventure

This is a D&D adventure (now converted to 3rd edition). In most ways, it is a fairly standard dungeon crawl: a group of adventurers go into the caves of a kobold lair and try to wipe them out. The twist is that the PC's are the kobolds (!).

The Land that Time Forgot

This is a South-Seas pulp adventure done using the Hero system, with pre-made characters. The heroes are going to investigate the mysterious disappearance of Amelia Earhart.

Macho Women With Guns

I ran a one-shot of this old-school tactical reverse-sexist game, with lots of humorous gags. It focused mainly on the system and the characters.

Mystery in Jarzon

A Blue Rose adventure set in the morally-ambiguous country of the setting, Jarzon. This was a simple one-off done as a test of the system.

On These Mean Streets

This is an adventure for the old Daredevils RPG which I put online a long time ago.

Polaris

This is a GMless system where everyone takes turns on who is the opposition, which I've organized runs of several times at conventions.

Ravenloft

I twice ran the old D&D modules Ravenloft and Ravenloft II as extended one-shot adventures. While I like the adventures a lot, I found the system and D&D baggage to be a great hindrance.

Shadows in the Fog

This was a playtest which I did for the alpha version of a new RPG written by Chris Lehrich.

Spirit of Serenity

A series of games set in the Serenity universe using the Spirit of the Century system. There was also a larp variant using the Parlor Larp system.

Star Trek: Blood Sacrifice

A Star Trek game using the characters of original series (i.e. Kirk, Spock, etc.), implemented in the HERO System. It was based on a very successful episode from my old Star Trek campaign.

Star Wars: Into the Jaws of Death

This is an off-beat adventure for the West End Games (i.e. d6) Star Wars RPG. I ran it at WisCon 21 (a feminist science fiction convention) in 1997.

Tolkien in the Old West

This was a short set of one-shots which I ran in college. It is set in a bizarre history where ships of elves from Middle Earth sail out of the Bermuda triangle in the 1830's and settle in America. The result is a quirky combination of western's and magic. It was originally done using the Spellcrafter system, a house system by Richard Garfinkle. I would probably use GURPS for it today.

Tyger, Tyger

A diceless game set in England of an alternate history where super-soldiers were first developed during WWII, created by Julian Morley.

Early One-shots

         As an interesting note, I ran a few games at conventions pretty early -- when I was 15 and 17. These I wrote and ran together with my friend Marc. I was on the East Coast and I went to the Origins game convention those years and we ran two tournaments each time.

"The Weird of Sathar" (Origins XI, June 1985)

A fairly straight AD&D dungeon-crawl, but with a rigorously worked out background. The dungeon was a ruined underground monastery which we mapped out first as a working institution.

"Murder on the Oriental Dragon Express" (Origins XI, June 1985)

A high-level AD&D spoof set on "Oerth's 800 ft. Organic Train System from Greyhawk to Gladsheim". It was a bit juvenile, but then so were we.

"A Tale of Two Cities" (Origins '87)

A peculiar AD&D tournament with two interesting features. It had two groups of PC's competing to share the same prize, and both groups consisted entirely of thieves (!).

"Bunnies and Burrows" (Origins '87)

A tactically-oriented B&B tournament, involving a push to rescue some fellow bunnies from a farmer's pen. It was pretty unsuccessful due to being scheduled early Sunday morning.